The Divine Lamp

1. Conscience. The obligation to act in a particular way in a particular instance affects the will through the intermediary of an act of knowledge. This is evident from the data of psychology and ethics. I ought to know the moral law not only as expressed in more or less general principles by means of general judgments of the practical reason, but also as applying or not applying to the particular case before me. The act by which the reason applies a universal principle of morality to a particular case is the judgment of conscience. The practical reason says: “you must be honest in business and give to each his due.” Conscience says: “You must return to your customer the sum of a hundred dollars, above the price of the article sold to him, which he gave you by error.”

A law which is not known cannot bind us, and we are never bound to act otherwise than our conscience tells us, even if its judgment happens to be erroneous. “We must say, unconditionally, that any act of the will which goes astray from reason, whether that reason be correct or false, is evil.” In applying his principle in this way, Aquinas shows his breadth of view, and-let us remark incidentally-demonstrates the tolerance of the thinkers of the thirteenth century in religious matters. For if anyone thought in good faith that he would do wrong in becoming a Christian, he would do wrong in believing in Christ, although the Christian Faith is in itself good, and necessary for salvation. For the same reason, a doubtful or ‘probable’ conscience does not bind or at any rate binds to a less degree. Obligation is a function of knowledge.

But we must add something further to this thomistic doctrine. It must not be supposed that every act of willing evil, under the impression that it is good, is morally upright, for a man has a positive duty to instruct himself concerning his moral obligations, seek light on doubtful points, and weigh probabilities (see 13:2). Error, doubt, hesitation become blameworthy if they are voluntary. Still, it remains true that anything which diminishes our clear vision of what we ought to do, such as prejudices, education, heredity, organic disease or weakness, fear anger, and other passions, defects or evil tendencies in the will, emotions, ect. (7:5), reduces the moral character of an act, and likewise responsibility.

2. Responsibility and sanctions. Moral acts, whether obligatory or not, are imputable to the individual, in so far as they are freely performed. As Aristotle puts it, a man is the father of his acts as he is the father of his children.

responsibility, relative to oneself or to others, involves merit and demerit. These are regarded by the Schoolmen as the natural consequences of the use of liberty. If an act freely willed, moral or immoral, had nothing to do with merit or demerit, and if ultimately we could not fall back upon a system of sanctions (i.e., rewards and punishments) which need to be completed in a future life,-not only would the good cease to be rewarded and evil punished, but liberty itself would no longer have a sufficient reason. What would be the use of liberty, if its proper or improper employment were without effect upon our final happiness?

3. Moral Virtues. Prudence and Justice. The performing of acts morally good engenders moral virtue: it impresses upon the higher part of our being a lasting bent which inclines us to act well in all the circumstances of our life. Moral virtue is the result of moral conduct in the past, and the source of similar conduct in the future. The moral virtues are prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance (see 8:3).

At the base of the moral life is prudence, the recta ratio agibilium-”right reasoning concerning things to be done”-which determines what acts should be performed in particular circumstances. Certain primary and very simple judgments which are present in every mind (such as, for instance, “it is necessary to live in society”) originate a tendency or inclination to act in accordance with them (for instance, a general tendency to do all that is necessary for life in society). Then comes a series of practical judgments which, considering all the circumstances (consilium, counsel), determine our choice. This in turn the will decides to follow (imperium). A prudent man is one who by the frequency of such judgments sees and decides rapidly and without hesitation what is to be done in a particular case. Prudence therefore belongs both to knowing and to acting, and exemplifies the intimate compenetration of knowledge and will in the unity of consciousness. Situated at the threshold of the moral life, prudence impregnates all the other virtues which guide us in our actions, especially justice, fortitude, and temperance.

To understand the meaning of justice we must begin y considering the notion of right (jus). Right presupposes the living together of many human beings in a community. Since I have a personal end to attain, my acts are naturally means which serve for my own perfection. If the directly benefit others, then these others owe me compensation, and right, jus, consists precisely in this requirement of equity. “Right, or that which is just, is some work related to another according to some kind of equity.”

Justice, the virtue par excellence of life in society, is the psychological and moral state of a man who wills “firmly and permanently to render to each one his due.” It accordingly supposes a plurality of distinct persons, capable of bringing about this equity by means of their actions. “Since it belongs to justice to regulate human actions, this equity which is called for by justice must be between different persons, capable of action.” This is indeed called for y the individualism which runs through the Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy of Thomas. He never loses an opportunity of stressing the value or personality.

Now, it is easy to see that the ‘other than self,’ for whose benefit justice exists, may signify an individual, or the community, and we thus obtain the division of justice into particular and social. For instance to give to a shopkeeper the price of an article purchased is to perform an act of private or particular justice.

In the present chapter only particular justice is in question. Since right-that which is due to others-rests upon an objective equality, it is independent of our passions and affections. The same is true of the virtue of justice. On the other hand, fortitude, which regulates boldness and fear, temperance, which bridles our appetites, and other virtues, are directly related to our passions and our inner dispositions.

We can say that Thomas Aquinas retains for the group of moral virtues the Aristotelian notion “in medio virtus” on condition that the means here is determined y reason, and differs in the case of different virtues. For instance, not to eat when one ought to, or to eat more than we ought, is not to observe the limits of temperance dictated by reason. Where the virtues are concerned, we must keep close to reason.

The moral philosophy of Thomas Aquinas is in close dependence upon his Metaphysics. The moral value of personality, the end of man, the notion of moral goodness, the moral richness of a human act, are all established in a way conformable with the great principles of pluralism, of universal finality, and of the goodness of being.

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3.  Principal characteristics of ideas.

but if ideas, or, in other words, the ideal and possible objects, are not furnished by the senses, whence then do they come?

Let us begin by examining the essential characteristics of ideas.  These are principally two-namely universality and necessity.

An ideal object or one that is merely possible, is always universal, in this sense, that taken by itself it enables us to know the nature of all the indefinite number of individuals in which it is or may be realized.  Take, for example, the idea of man.  The idea of man is the same as the ideal man.  Whatever be the number of human individuals in whom this idea may be realized there is always the same nature of man; that nature is one, the individuals are many.

Now what does the idea of man, or the ideal man express and make us know?  The nature of man, if he had the power of creation, would be able by this alone to produce as many human individuals as he pleased.  In the same way this one idea is sufficient to enable us to discern all men who may ever come into existence.  So also a sculptor who had conceived the idea of a stature, would be able to reproduce it in marble as many times as he pleased, without the idea being ever exhausted.  The ideal stature would remain one and always the same, standing before the mind as the exemplar; the material copies would be many, all formed and made known by means of this same idea.  This is what is meant by the universality of ideas, by which they are categorically  distinguished from the real objects which are always particular, and from the sensations which are also particular.

The characteristic of necessity is equally evident, because the ideas being possible objects, it is clear that what is possible can never have been otherwise than possible, and hence it is such, necessarily.  The possible is that which involves no contradiction;every object, therefore, which involves no contradiction is necessarily possible.  Now all finite and real beings considered in their reality are contingent only and not necessary, in contradiction to possible beings.  For we may think of any finite or real being whatsoever as existing or not existing, whereas we can not think of the possible  object ceasing to be possible, that is to say, becoming not possible.  For example, man in his possibility is necessary, for you cannot make man an impossible being; on the contrary, a real man is always a contingent being, because he may or may not be.

Universality, therefore, and necessity are the two principal characteristics of the ideas.  These include two others-namely, infinity and eternity.

An infinity is necessarily involved in ideas, by reason of their universality.  No real and limited being is universal.  For reason of its very limits it is determined within itself and incommunicable to any other being.  Hence ideas do not belong to the class of real limited beings.

Ideas are also eternal, because they are necessary; for that which is necessary, and that which always is and always was  is eternal.

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2. Ideas are not nothing.  They have a mode of existence proper to themselves.

We have seen that the objects of our cognitions are essentially distinct from ourselves, who are the subjects of the cognitions.  This distinction of the object from the subject of cognition is proper to all objects whatever, whether they are only possible (ideas) or are also subsistent (things).  But not only are all such objects distinct from the cognizing subject, they are also independent of it.  By this observation a new light is thrown on the nature of ideas, for they compel us to conclude by the logic of facts:

1st. That ideas are not nothing.
2nd. That they are not ourselves or any modification of ourselves.
3rd.  That they have a mode of existence of their own, entirely different from that of real or subsistent things.

This mode of existence belonging to the ideal objects or ideas is such that it does not fall under our bodily sense, and hence it is that it has entirely escaped the observation of many philosophers, who began their philosophical investigations with a foregone conclusion, or assumption that whatever did not fall under our senses was nothing.  Yet it is a fact that though the possible objects truly exist they do not fall under sense, and hence that we can in no way account for them by recurring to corporeal sense only; which is a fresh and self-evident confutation of sensism. 

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1. Distinction Between Subject and Object.

It is clear, then, from what we have already said that the object known is a thing entirely different from the subject or knower.  the subject that knows is a person, the object, as such, is impersonal.   Sometimes however we may say that in a certain sense the object known is a subject that knows, when, for instance, the object of thought is man; sometimes also the subject that knows is itself the object known, as when we think of ourselves.  But the subject that knows can never,, as such, e confounded or mixed up with the object known.   Always and in every case the subject and the object retain their respective natures, each remaining perfectly distinct from the other, so distinct that if it were otherwise our knowledge itself would be extinguished.  The distinction between subject and object is therefore an essential characteristic of cognition.

The question, therefore, is reduced to this: Whence does our understanding obtain its object?

Human cognitions are divided into two classes, intuitions and affirmations.

Intuitional knowledge or cognition is that which regards the  things, as considered in themselves, the things in their possibility.  Things considered in themselves as possible to subsist or not to subsist are the ideas.

Cognition obtained by means of affirmation or judgments is that knowledge which we acquire by affirming or judging that a thing subsists or does not subsist.

From this description the following consequences spring:

1. That the cognitions by intuition necessarily precede those of affirmation, for we can not affirm that a thing subsists or does not subsist unless we first know the thing itself as possible to subsist; for example, I can not say that a tree or a man subsists unless I first know what a tree or a man is.  Now to know what a thing is comes to the same as to know the thing in its possibility, for I may know what a tree is, and yet not know that this tree as yet subsists.

That the objects as known all belong to intuitional knowledge, because affirmation is limited to affirming or denying the subsistence of the object as known by intuition.  Affirmation, therefore, does not furnish any new object to the mind, but only pronounces the subsistence of the object already known.  Intuition, therefore, places us in possession of possible objects, and these we call ideas.  Affirmation does not furnish us with new possible objects, or new ideas, but produces persuasions in respect of the objects which we know already.   There are, therefore, cognitions which terminate in ideas, and cognitions which terminate in persuasions.  By the first we know the possible world, by the second the real and subsistent world.  Hence there are two categories of things-things possible and the things subsistent, in other words ideas and things.

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1.  Nature and extension of moral obligation.  The study of moral obligation is one of the chief features in which the Schoolmen advance beyond the Greek philosophers, who confined themselves to the study of the good.  Among acts which are morally good some are obligatory; others are not.  For instance, all men are not called upon to be heroes or martyrs, but it is required of all to respect the rights of others to life and property.

Psychologically, moral obligation manifests itself to us in the form of command, or compulsion, which pushes the will in a certain direction, and yet does not destroy liberty in those cases where there is room for freedom.  For example, we are all aware that we should respect our parents, but we are all nevertheless free not to do so.

To what voluntary act does this moral obligation belong?  In the first place we are bound to will our end, i.e., our well-being, and to seek it where it is to be f– in that which answers to the deep-rooted tendencies of our rational nature–and not to look for it exclusively in those secondary goods which cease to be good when not controlled by reason.  In the second place we are morally bound to will whatever is indispensable in order to reach this end, and to avoid that which must of necessity turn us away from it.  Thus natural religion becomes a duty, since God is the end in which man finds his happiness, and since we are obliged to know God and to love Him, with the entire strength of our nature.  With the Schoolmen, natural religion is a religion of love and inspires all human conduct.  Therefore, God is not merely a frigid metaphysical skeleton, the changeless being which explains all change, but He enters into the whole moral life of man.  Obligation in the case of the necessary means is a corollary from the obligation to seek the end.  But obligation stops there.  In order to bet from Boston to New York, I must somehow cover the distance which separates the two cities, but I can get to new York by train or by ship.  So also I can freely choose between different means, when each of them leads to the end and no one is the exclusive way to reach it.  This is the reason why all states of life are good, why neither marriage nor celibacy are obligatory,  and why a man may choose any career  which he thinks will enable him to reach his destiny.  Hence moral obligation consists in the necessity of willing our supreme good, combined with the liberty of choosing the concrete objects wherein it is in  fact realized.

What is the basis of moral obligation?  The psychological fact of compulsion reveals moral obligation, but cannot e a sufficient reason for it, since we may ask further: upon what does this feeling rest?  For the Schoolmen, moral obligation is founded upon human nature itself and its need of well-being.  Such is at any rate the proximate basis of obligation.  But the ultimate foundation is a Divine decree.  God alone can dictate a law which binds morally; He alone can add the necessary sanction to it.  Obligation and moral law stand to man in the same relation as the natural law to all beings: they concern the application of the eternal law to a nature which is rational and free.

2.  The Natural Law of Mankind.  Thomas Aquinas distinguishes between two kinds of commands dictated by the natural law to man.  (1) First we have the fundamental command to act according to reason, “to do good and to avoid evil,” and to follow some general precepts which flow from this fundamental obligation.  For instance men are obliged “to preserve their own life and to ward off its obstacles…to know the truth about God and to live in Society.”  These commands are the same for all men and for all time.  They may become clouded over in certain cases, but they can never be altogether effaced, for they are a corollary of our inborn tendency towards our real well-being.  It follows from this that human nature is radically sound, and that the worst of criminals is capable of moral reformation.

(2) In the second place we have principles which we may describe as circumstantial, since human conduct is necessarily bound up with conditions of space and time, and physical and social surroundings.  Human reason must take the circumstances into consideration in enunciating a moral law.  The more closely a law is applied to particular circumstances and cases, the more numerous will be the exceptions to the law, and these exceptions will be justifiable at the bar of reason.  Accordingly, Thomas says that a moral law governs only the majority of cases, “ut in pluribus.”  “Consequently, in contingent matters such as natural and human things, it is enough for a thing to be true in the greater number of cases, though at times, and less frequently, it may fail.”  “From the principle that we must act according to reason, we can infer that we ought to return things entrusted to us, and this is true in the majority of cases.  In certain instances, however, restitution would be dangerous and therefore unreasonable, as in the case where the one to whom the article was returned would make use of it to put and end to his life, or do harm to his country.”

3. Fixity and variability of laws.  These conditions explain why in circumstantial laws-which after all are the only ones which regulate our daily life-we find both change and fixity.  The historical and social circumstances may vary, and thus some elasticity in the moral laws becomes possible.  But the fundamental precept, and the immediate corollaries from it, which are known by all and bind all, are fixed and invariable.  They are permanent as human nature and human reason themselves.  They form a deposit in the depths of every human soul and an interior voice informs us of them.  They correspond to the unwritten dictates spoken of by Sophocles in Antigone, Cicero, the Stoics, and the Fathers of the Church, and which the Schoolmen incorporated into their comprehensive system of metaphysics.

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1. The Science of Morality. The activity of man is characterized by teleology, i.e., he desires certain things as ends, and he wills other things as means to these ends. In this, he resembles all other natural beings, which are, as we have seen, endowed with this teleological character. But whereas these others tend towards their ends in virtue of certain internal inclinations themselves unconscious and not subject to control, man, being endowed with reason and liberty, is master of his own conduct,-”master of the acts which lead towards his end.” The study of human conduct as directed by us towards an end forms the subject matter of Ethics or Moral Philosophy. The knowledge which we thereby obtain is concerned with an order of things of which we ourselves are the authors, and not merely spectators (see 18:2). For our conduct is our own work, and the resulting relations between us and the universe in general are what we ourselves make them.

Starting from facts duly observed, Moral Philosophy discusses three general questions: the end in view, the act whereby we seek to attain it, and morality, or the relation of agreement or suitability between the one and the other.

2. The problem of ends or aims. it is a matter of common experience that our conduct is motivated by different aims: riches, honor, material pleasure, social positions, ect. All these are desired as being good things, for the only possible motive of actions is our well-being, and the suitability of things or actions in view thereof. The good is that which all desire. Even a man who commits suicide, in order to to an end some trouble or other, obeys the same law. Man’s nature is to will the good, and all that is good. And when our knowledge puts us in presence of an external reality or an action “simply as desirable or suitable for us,” we necessarily will it, unless indeed we first reflect, and as a result realize that “all is not gold that glitters.”

The good which constitutes the end we aim at is always our own good. Nothing is more personal than conduct, and the ends we aim at in our lives. If the end be pleasure, our fortune, our knowledge. The end is a personal one, because man is an individual substance. Of course, the well-being of others enters as a motive of conduct, but it can only be a second one. It will be seen below that every human act is a social act, which benefits or harms a community. The realization of individual happiness is the sole reason for living in society. Hence it is still for our personal perfection that we care for the well-being of others. For instance, those who aid their neighbor see in their good work the accomplishment of an act which their reason approves, and which perfects them in their own eyes.

The Schoolmen are so convinced of the personal character of happiness that they raise the question whether an act of disinterested love is possible, even when God is the object. So that no one could say in general: we love ourselves in the first place and others only secondarily.

Experience also teaches us that some ends are subordinated to others, and that all have not the same value. They are arranged in a hierarchical order: I go on a particular voyage, in order to do some business of a particular kind; this I want to do in order to make money; this again I want that I may be my own master, and so on. An end which is subordinated to another, or is useful, becomes a means. Now there must evidently be a supreme end or aim which dominates and under lies all the others. If not, I should never desire anything at all, and should never go beyond a mere platonic consideration of the possibilities of action. But we do make actual decisions, and in order to explain their actuality, there must be some real end towards which they are directed. Otherwise we should be led into an infinite regression, which is as absurd in this connection as in the order of efficient causality (see9:1). For, an infinite regress would render any actual decision impossible; and yet, particular decisions or acts of the will are facts. What is the supreme end? We may say in the first place that it is my whole good or my good in general. But such a statement would be incomplete, for one would go on to ask where this whole good or good in general is to be found. Here we are confronted with the theory of values. Concrete good things of many kinds lie within our grasp: pleasures of the body and of the mind, good health, fortune, friendship, and so on. All these correspond in a certain measure to our aspirations, but it becomes necessary to draw up a scale of their respective values, and this can only be done by the reason. Now our reason tells us that the truly human good ought to consist in that which will satisfy our specifically human aspirations, or, in other words, corresponds to those faculties which are the highest we possess, and which makes us human, namely intelligence and will. Things other than the intellectual will be good only as supplementary, so to speak, and as controlled by reason.

The happiness which corresponds to our mode of being will consist in knowing and loving. To know in a perfect way, to penetrate all the mysteries of the material universe and to dominate it, and to know in addition by means of His works the great Creator of them all, God Himself; then to love in the same perfect way, to delight in knowledge for its own sake, and to cast ourselves towards God our Creator,-this will constitute philosophic happiness.

Doubtless, the man who desires good as such, perfect good, does not at once perceive that it is God alone who can satisfy the aspirations of his mind and heart. His reason arrives at this conclusion by the gradual elimination of objects other than God. Until this process of reasoning is performed, man seeks for happiness, unaware that God is his happiness. “To perceive that someone approaches is not to know Peter, although Peter is the man who approaches. Likewise, to know that a supreme good exists is not to recognize God in it, although God is that supreme good.”

Doubtless, in this purely natural state of existence, we should have surmised that a knowledge and a love of another and higher kind, and out of the reach of our powers, was in itself possible,-we refer to a direct intuition of the Divinity, and a corresponding love. But in any case, we should have realized that is was beyond us, and we should have known also the reason why.

At this point Catholic theology intervenes, and states that this higher destiny and state, which surpasses the powers of our rational nature, is given us by grace. God offers us supernatural happiness as a free gift. The “blessedness of abstraction” fades in “blessedness of vision,” just as a shadow is absorbed in a ray of light.

The end of man, then, according to scholastic philosophy, is an intellectual one. To behold God, whether in His works, or face to face, is more essential for happiness than love itself, according to Thomas Aquinas, for love is after all a necessary consequence of such a vision. Surely no philosophy could give to knowledge a higher or more magnificent role than this.

It must not, however, be thought that the Schoolmen exclude other good things, such as physical well-being, from human happiness. Rather these things are considered to contribute to happiness as a whole, and since man has a body, his body ought to share in happiness just as his would, always on condition that these complementary good things remain in due subordination to the human good par excellence.

In concluding this section, let us note that the supreme end of man, consisting in the full development of his powers of knowing and willing, is not beyond his grasp. Happiness is not a mirage. Scholastic Moral Philosophy is optimistic.

3. Voluntary acts and Free acts. Human conduct consists of voluntary acts, for it is the will that tends towards the good in general as presented to us by our reason, or towards any particular thing which exhibits the quality of goodness. ‘Particular thing’ must here be taken in a large sense, so as to include not merely external objects which we may wish for (as a landowner may wish to add a field to his property), but also any activity (eating, drinking, games, study) performed in obedience to the orders of the will. We have already seen that when confronted with a good thing which our minds regard as simply good and without defect, we necessarily will it. We cannot possibly destroy this tendency in our nature. Our will has an insatiable thirst for the good. Liberty enters only in the choice of things which are partially good, or which reflection shows to be limited in goodness.

It is therefore the voluntary act, and more especially the free act, which is endowed with morality. A morally good or bad act is above all a free act. Why is this?

4. Moral goodness of a human act. A thing or act is good when it is suitable for us in some way. To live a life of pleasure, or to think only of getting rich, appears as good only to a sensual and grasping man. A thing or act is morally good only if it is in agreement with the true end of man, and contributes directly or indirectly to our real perfection. From the moral point of view, pleasure and wealth are neither good nor evil. They only become so when the will, guided by the reason, either does or does not employ them in the service of the truly human good, by allocating them their proper place in the scale of values. Goodness and moral goodness are accordingly not synonymous: The latter is only one species of the former. Morality will differ with the end assigned, since it consists in the relation between act and end. The conception of morality will accordingly be different in the hedonistic systems which regard pleasure as the only end, and in the intellectualist system of the Schoolmen.

Morality belongs to the sum total of human volitions, but more especially to our free acts. Although the profound and necessary tendency of man towards the good in general is indeed endowed with morality, since it is that which sets the human will in motion, moral character belongs principally to the act which is freely willed; for once the fundamental tendency referred to translates itself into an actual volition, it will then be concerned with a concrete, limited good, which forms the subject matter of free choice. Thus man has the awful power of choosing his path. He can turn away from that which constitutes his true well-being, and attach himself instead to things which are doubtless endowed with real goodness of a sort, but are nevertheless destructive of his own true interests.

Liberty takes on a moral aspect when it is considered in conjunction with the end of human conduct. In consequence, anything which increases or diminishes liberty-dullness of mental vision, the duly ordered or disordered state of passions, bodily health or disease, education and habits-all will affect the morality of the actions.

5. Objective distinctions between moral good and evil. The end of man follows from his nature. The supreme human good is what it is because man has a consciousness, is rational, and is endowed with free will. In the ultimate analysis, human nature, like other essences, is founded upon an immutable relationship of similitude with God.  Since this is the case, the relation which exists between a human acct and man’s end must also follow from the nature of things.  Whether we like it or not, it is what it is.  Morality does not depend upon the caprice of men, and not even God Himself could change it.  Whether we wish it or not, a prayer must draw us towards God, and blasphemy must separate us from Him.  And, if life in society is an indispensable condition for the attainment of our individual ends, to help our fellows must be morally good, and to seek to destroy authority must be morally bad.

As for these acts which in themselves have no relation to man’s end, and which are accordingly known as ‘indifferent,’ they will have a subordinate importance, and the end for which we freely perform them will give them a borrowed moral character as it were, which will make them really good or evil.  The most bana of all our acts-such as going for a walk, or working in a laboratory-will possess its character of goodness or evil, because of the repercussions which it must ultimately have upon our lives or upon the lives of other members of human society.

6. Moral richness of an act.  From this it follows that the more an act conduces to the perfection of our nature, the richer will be its morality.  Besides the intrinsic character of an act which makes it good or evil, and of which we have just spoken (finis operis), Thomas Aquinas calls attention to the intention (finis operantis) and the circumstances of this act, as being two other elements, which increase or diminish its moral goodness or evil.  Thus, to open a subscription for the relief of the poor is a good act by its very nature, and no human intention could alter this intrinsic goodness (finis operis).  But the vanity of him who organized the charity lessens the moral value of the undertaking.  In the same way, this value increases, if he must undergo sacrifices or difficulties to attain his purpose.  It may be noticed that these same elements (intrinsic character, intention, circumstances) affect not only the morality, but also the degree of reality of the act itself.  Consequently they enrich or impoverish the personality from which all our activities originate.-Maurice De Wulf 

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Seventh defect: Smith does not see that to know in things that which is ‘common’ is easier that to know that which is ‘proper.’

153.  The study of antiquity, then, reveals to us the fact that the invention of common nouns is of a very much earlier date than that of proper nouns; that in ancient languages common nouns were employed even when necessity compelled the naming of individual objects; and hence that for truly proper nouns we must look to modern languages only.

This mode of progression in the formation of languages may at first sight appear strange; but if we examine it attentively we shall find that it is perfectly natural-nay, the only one possible to the human mind.

In the first place, a much more difficult abstraction is required, as we have said, for noting and naming the individuality itself of beings, than for giving attention to their common qualities and naming them aaccordingly (see 150).  Now, the development of man’s faculties is gradual, and therefore must commence with the easier, and not with the more difficult, operations.

In the second place, words are only invented to supply a need.  Now, the first need which men experience is that of designating things through their more general qualities.  Then comes a time when things must be named by means of more special qualities, both to prevent a confusion and the damage or annoyance that result from it.  The, again, as experience and the use of things proceeds further and further, men fell called upon to make smaller and smaller subdivisions, and to indicate them by names less and less common; and so on until the social development reaches a stage so advanced as to necessitate the marking by proper names of the individuals themselves.  Proper names are, therefore, the very last to be invented.  They give to language its ultimate completion and perfection.

Accordingly, we find that there is not a single thing which has not a common name: not all have the name of the genus; still fewer have also that of the species; while those distinguished by a proper name form but a very insignificant fraction, and this in modern language only.

It is therefore manifest that the philosophers of whom I speak, in describing the progress of the human mind in the formation of languages, began precisely at the point where they ought to have ended; and they did this because, instead of taking the real facts for their guide, they hastily abandoned themselves to hypothetical speculations.  They imagined the invention of proper nouns to be the first step in human speech, whereas in very truth it is the last.  It, in fact, supposes the very highest degree of social culture; so much so, that even in the modern European languages, brought though they are to so great a perfection-thanks to the civilising influence which Christianity has happily been exercising for nearly two thousand years-proper nouns can still be traced to their origin, and there recognised as having, at first, been nothing but common nouns.

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Article 8
Sixth defect Smith does not see that the first names given to things were common nouns.

148.  For my own part, I thing it more probable that the names given by the supposed savage to his tree, to his cave, and to his fountain, would be common nouns from the very first.

Be it observed that, generally speaking, proper names are not imposed on objects of the description here spoken of-i.e. caves, trees, fountains, &c.-but rather on persons, places rivers, &c.; because this is found necessary for not confounding such things together.  Usually there is not any necessity for individuating by a proper name a tree, a cave, a fountain; and if there is, men are accustomed to secure such individuation by referring to circumstances connected with the thing.

Thus, for example, a cave would be called the cave of Polyphemus, from the man who was dwelling in it; or the cave of Hebron, from the district in which it stood; and so with the expressions the cedar of Lebanon, the rose of Jericho, the palm of Cades, from the places where these trees flourished; the well of Jacob, from him who dug it, or discovered, or made use of it; the healing fountain, from the medicinal properties of its waters, and so on.  For things of this kind there never is an imperative need of inventing proper names.

149.  Hence we can see why proper names, denoting as they do the individual substance of a thing, far from being the most frequent, are, even in the riches and most copious languages, wanting to numberless objects; whereas there is not a single thing in the world without a common name of some sort.  The common name is more necessary than the proper, and it is probable that men did not invent proper names until the perceived that without them a confusion of similar things would ensue.  When a case of this kind occurred, they would fix for the one particular thing a name significative of that proper and individual substance, whereby alone that thing became unmistakably  segregated from all others of the same species.

150  In this connection it is important to observe that the imposing of a name on that exclusive property which individualizes a being, and unmistakably singles it out from among all others of the same species, demands  a much more difficult exercise of abstraction than is required for naming that being from a quality it possesses in common with other beings.  Speaking in particular of bodies, their common qualities are the first to strike our senses, and to be cognised by us.  Consequently, it is much more likely that we should name a corporeal being from these qualities than from its own proper and individual substance, which, as separate from its accident, does not fall under our senses, and can only be separated from the accidents by means of an abstraction, or rather a series of abstractions.  I therefore believe the real truth to be, that it is only after a very long lapse of time, and after many comparisons have been made between things of the same species, that men’s intellectual powers grow so far developed as distinctly and expressly to notice that, besides the common qualities which fall under the senses, there is in each being a something so exclusively proper as to divide it completely from all other beings; and that something is its own self.

Accordingly, my firm persuasion is, that our supposed savages would not at first have felt the need of giving to his tree, cave, or the fountain a proper name, but only at a much later period, when having already seen many caves, trees, and fountains, he would have learnt to separate in his mind the individuality of each, and, what is still more, to see the necessity of singling out that individuality by a special name, so that he might in speaking, for instance, to his wife and children point out to them that particular cave, tree, or fountain, with such precision that they would not be able to mistake them for other caves, trees, or fountains.  I do not, however, believe that a necessity like this would arise while he continued in a savage state, nor yet for a good while after, even though he should have considerably advanced in civilization.  Even were the necessity to occur he would doubtless supply it by a much readier process than the most difficult one of inventing proper names; for example, by the context of his discourse, or by means of those accidental adjuncts which I have mentioned, or by some other expedient.

151.  Moreover, as we cannot know that a name is common simply from the fact of its being applied to many individuals, because, as we have seen, many might be called by the same proper name, so on the other hand we cannot say that a name is proper simply from finding it applied to one individual only.  For even a single individual may be designated by a common name.  Thus, in the supposition that only one man were left in this world, there would be no necessity whatever of a proper name for him, since the common name of man would then be quite sufficient to identify him beyond the possibility of his being mistaken for another.  And yet this would still be a common name, because derived from humanity-a quality which would equally belong to other human individuals if there were any in existence.

Nor is this all mere conjecture, based on imagination, like the narrative of Smith.  It is the fact as descried in the inspired book of Genesis.  There we read of a time when there was only one man on the earth.  No proper name was given to this man, for none was required; but he was called Adam, which in the Hebrew language conveys the same meaning as our word man.  And that we may better see how this was truly a common name, let us look at its origin.  It was derived from earth, the material of which the same sacred record declares man to have been formed, and it was intended to signify a ‘being composed of earth.’  Therefore, the first person ever named in this world was not designated through his individuality, but through a quality common to all men who should come after him, and hence by a common noun.

152.   Instead, then, of having recourse to an imaginary savage, and of losing themselves in an arbitrary supposition-a method which is, by universal consent, the reverse of philosophical-would not our philosophers have acted much more wisely by consulting the monuments of antiquity, which give us the real facts?

A sober investigation of these facts would have made them see the impropriety of assenting without careful examination to the opinion, certain as it might seem at first sight, that ‘proper nouns were invented before the common.’

It is just in propositions like these, which make an apparent show of evidence, that the most pernicious errors lie concealed, and in such a way as to render their detection a matter of no small difficulty.  The false evidence causes these propositions to be gratuitously accepted even by men otherwise circumspect, as Mr. Dugald Stewart is generally reputed to be, and makes them believe themselves dispensed from a diligent and painstaking study of the facts.

Had these respectable philosophers examined, as I have said, the manner in which the first men really imposed names on things, they would most certainly have found that those primitive names were never chosen arbitrarily, as is the case with proper names.  The first men did not express individual objects through their individuality, but always through a quality they held in common with other objects.  Thus Cain meant ‘a thing acquired or newly gotten;’ hence in giving this name Adam said, ‘I have gotten a new thing through God.’  Applicable as this word is to everything acquired or ‘newly gotten,’ it is clearly a common noun.  Abel meant ‘vanity’ Eve, ‘life-giver;’ Seth, ‘a being substituted;’ Enoch, ‘dedicated;’ Lamech, ‘poor,’ ‘humbled;’ all of which are, again, common nouns.  And the same may be said of the other Hebrew names of persons or things.  All of them designate the individual through common qualities, and are therefore common nouns.

A similar observation may be made as regards Greek names, and, indeed, the names of all antiquity, in which it may safely be affirmed that men never knew how to impose truly proper names, indicating the individuality itself of a thing, such as have come to be, in modern languages, Peter, Paul, Italy, France, England, the Adige, the Tiber, the Po.  Nay, even these names only beame proper from the time that their etymologies were lost of forgotten.

That these proper nouns which modern languages have inherited from antiquity were originally common nouns, is proved by all that remains to us of their etymologies; for from these we can see that the men of those early times designated the said persons, countries, rivers, &c., not by the individuality exclusively proper to each, but by qualities which were or might be possessed by other beings of the same species.

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Article 7. Fifth defect: Smith does not understand the reason why common nouns and proper nouns are severally so called.

146.  Having thus cleared up the ideas attached severally to the words proper noun and common noun, let us continue our analysis of the reasoning of Smith.

The proper name, then, is imposed on a being to express its individuality alone.  But as this name has no necessary relation with that individuality, one is free to apply it to the individuality of any other being one pleases.

Thus, for example, a father who has twelve sons may, if so inclined, call each of them in succession by the proper name of Peter.  I will, moreover, suppose that all persons now living who answer to the name of Peter are assembled together before us.  Does it follow that this name Peter, because applied to so many people, is a common noun?  Certainly not; and the reason is clear.  The fact of a name being common or proper does not depend upon its being used for naming one individual or many, but on the manner in which it names them.  If it names them, in consideration of a quality common to them all-as, for instance, in the case of the term man, which distinguishes human beings through humanity-then it is common.  But if it names them purely and simply with reference to their individuality, it is proper.  Hence even if every man in this world were called Peter, all that we could say of it would be that every man had two names, one common-i.e. man; and one proper-i.e. Peter.  As a matter of fact, each of us has the two names, and it is a mere accident that out proper name is, or is not, the same as that of our neighbors.  Indeed, the number of proper names is very small in comparison with the whole human race; nay, there might even be but one proper name for all men alike.

147.   Now, this reveals a new fallacy in the reasoning of Smith-I mean, in that part where he says, though without any proof, that the savage changes proper names into common, simply by applying them to many individuals; as if nothing else were wanted for effecting such a change.  So far is this from being true, that even if the name of Peter were, as I have said, given to all the men of a province, of a kingdom, of the world, it would still remain proper, since it would indicate men, not through their common humanity, but through the individuality of each.

Suppose, then, that the savage had given a proper name to the first cave which sheltered him from inclemency of the weather, another to the first tree with the fruit of which he relieved his hunger, a third to the first fountain at which he quenched his thirst; and suppose, further, that on seeing afterwards one, two, or three similar caves, one, two, or three similar trees or fountains, he had also given each of them the same name as he used in the first instance, we should thus have four caves, four trees, four fountains, called respectively by the same name; but it would still remain to be seen whether this savage, in applying one and the same name to four similar things, used it as  a proper or as a common noun.

Now, it is clear that in no case id he, as Smith asserts, denote a ‘multitude’ of individuals; since each time he said cave, tree, fountain, he meant only one cave, one tree, one fountain.  But even if he had made these names collective by saying in the plural caves, trees, fountains, that would not have sufficed by itself to prove that the names were ‘common’ (see146).  The only criterion for judging whether they were common or proper consists in knowing whether in them he contradistinguished the  individuals by means of qualities which they held in common, or designated those individuals through their own individualities alone

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Ultimate grounds are either absolute or relative.  The former are, strictly speaking, alone ultimate, and, as such, constitute the scope of General Philsophy;  whereas the latter are ultimate only in reference to a determinate branch of science, and hence from the scope of Special Philosophies, such as those of matematics, physics, history, politics, art, ect.

Though Rosmini prefers the term ultimate grounds, he does not object to calling them likewise first grounds.  “ultimate grounds,”  he says, “and first grounds  are equivalent expressions, because what is last in the one direction of thought is first in the other.”  Compare the Aristotelian doctrine, that what is first in essence or nature is last in generation, or, as St Thomas puts it, “What is first and better known in its nature is last and less known relatively to us.”  Of the relation of Philosophy to the other sciences  Rosmini says, “The ultimate grounds outside of the world and the ultimate grounds in the world, these form the object of philosophy, which thus occupies the last two and highest steps of the pyramid we have described.  Hence philosophy remains clearly separated from, and elevated above, the other sciences, as the guide and mother of them all.  These form the lower steps of the pyramid, depending upon the highest two and receiving their light from them”

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